I find myself in a unique position with my job/hobby. Each day I garnish my brain with new information supplied to me by clients who wish to do the same to their products and processes.
Innovation is always the theme, like a bi-line to a catchy add or for some, another dart in an already complicated board.
What's it like - teaching Innovation at the highest level.
Over the coming months, and dare I say years, I want to share with you some of my innovation anecdotes. I can't necessarily tell you exactly where they have come from, but I want to capture the essence of what I am seeing. Why? Because I am privileged enough to hear them in the first place.
So here's the first, to kick this series off.
Question - how do you convince someone that something is worth learning?
Response - Allow them to convince themselves. Seems straight forward and sufficiently nebulous to completely avoid answering the question.
I'll give this a context. A higher education teacher asked me how she could get her students to spend more time on projects she considered worthwhile for them to learn.
The students had chosen to take the class so they had clearly considered the value it would bring, at least in the syllabus. This does not automatically mean that the way in which the class is taught is most appropriate for the student to learn, and should there be a miss match it is usually the student who loses interest first. I'm engaged to an educator and consider myself one albeit to company students as opposed to pre-adult learners in a school setting. In either setting the student will likely have a different learning path than the teacher and it is important to recognise that. Without it the student is unlikely to learn and from the beginning turn away from the course. So, it is already widely acknowledged that students learn differently, and not always in the way an educator teaches.
There is a second important consideration, and that's how the student is assessed. It was here that the teacher I was discussing this with was given the greatest cause for thought.
She told me that she spent time devising the assessment method and looked to assess in a variety of ways. This was great to hear, but why then is she also asking how to convince a student that something is worth learning?
Do students gravitate to subjects and courses they feel they will have success in?
How are we gauging success.
How are we adapting as educators to assess the learning and understanding capability of a student. Do we go beyond the norm or projects, written answers, class discussions?
The teacher in question - and certainly this educator, is going to strive to find more meaningful assessment methods for our students - to ensure their learning.
And an interesting aside - in the world of Business (I am a consultant) educators are valued at how well a student adopts a practice, in my case, my success is entirely dependent on the adoption of a piece of software - not how successful they are, but how successful they are at putting into practice what I have taught them.
Can the same paradigm be used in the education system - now that's novel!
2 comments:
A good read might be How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (2000)
Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (CBASSE)
The book provides an introduction to understanding how we learn - elaborating on how educators might help all students reach their highest potential.
Critical for teachers to reflect on their own practice - read the Chapter on Expert vs. Novice - you raise some interesting ideas regarding applying emerging research in education to innovation in the workplace and beyond.
"How Experts Differ from Novices
People who have developed expertise in particular areas are, by definition, able to think effectively about problems in those areas. Understanding expertise is important because it provides insights into the nature of thinking and problem solving. Research shows that it is not simply general abilities, such as memory or intelligence, nor the use of general strategies that differentiate experts from novices. Instead, experts have acquired extensive knowledge that affects what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information in their environment. This, in turn, affects their abilities to remember, reason, and solve problems.
This chapter illustrates key scientific findings that have come from the study of people who have developed expertise in areas such as chess, physics, mathematics, electronics, and history. We discuss these examples not because all school children are expected to become experts in these or any other areas, but because the study of expertise shows what the results of successful learning look like. In later chapters we explore what is known about processes of learning that can eventually lead to the development of expertise."
Thanks Claire.
I've followed up on the link to the NSF panel too. Very interesting, let's hope a curriculum or avenue for fostering the innovation inherent in our schools is coming our way soon. I've my hand raised to help where I can.
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